Social Presence is the concept of `being there', of emotional connectedness to another person. As relationships are increasingly formed by spatially disparate partners, supporting social presence has become more important. As many intimate acts involve touching, this paper investigates the impact that heat, one aspect of touch, has upon social presence. This is presented in the form of a therma...

Many western European housing policies have tried to increase the residential mix of advantaged and disadvantaged groups. Unfortunately, policymakers have given little consideration to how these groups will interact as neighbours. There are numerous theoretically grounded mechanisms by which the social mix of a neighbourhood may influence socio-economic outcomes of its residents. These mechanis...

Two studies examined the use of video in multimedia learning environments. In Study 1, participants (N = 26) viewed one of two versions of a computer-based multimedia presentation: video, which included a video of a lecture with synchronized slides, or no video, which included the slides but only an audio narration of the lecture. Learning, cognitive load and social presence were assessed, but ...

This article proposes a new approach for centralized path planning of multiple aircraft in presence of the obstacle-laden environment under low flying rules. The problem considers as a unified nonlinear constraint optimization problem. The minimum time and control investigate as the cost functions and the maximum velocity and power consider as the constraints. The pseudospectral method applies ...

Multi-modal virtual environments succeed better, than single-channel technologies, in creating the 'sense of presence'. We hypothesize that the underlying cognitive mechanism is related to a faster mental processing of multimodal events. Comparing reaction time in uni-modal, bimodal and tri-modal events, we show that the processing speed is: uni-modal > bi-modal > tri-modal. Given this advantag...

This study provides a framework for researchers who study the interactions of humans with computers to develop and evaluate user-centric user-interfaces by applying existing theories about telepresence, human-computer research, and characteristics of technology itself to produce social and spatial experiences similar to the ones computer users experience in the non-mediated world. An experiment...

Research on information sharing has viewed this activity as essential for informing groups on content relevant to a decision. We propose and examine an alternate function of information sharing, i.e., the social construction of meaning. To accomplish this goal, we turn to social construction, social presence, and task closure theories. Drawing from these theories, we hypothesize relationships a...

Research into the effectiveness of online learning has yielded a number of potential models of online learning effectiveness but no verified theoretical frameworks (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). Extensive literature exists related to the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, first proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000) to describe the components of an ideal educational experience. The model ...

E-commerce diffusion has apparently taken different paths in different nations partially because of the implications of national technology and the political and economic environments. This paper examines both the diffusion and the impacts of e-commerce in China, based on results of a large-scale survey conducted in 10 countries including China. Findings lead to the conclusion that Chinese firm...